Proenza Schouler Will Make You Want to Wear Acid Wash Again

New York Fashion Week has been going through some upheaval over the past few seasons, with designers ditching the traditional schedule or decamping to Paris. It seemed bred from an overwhelming feeling of "meh" within the New York fashion scene. So there was a good deal of anticipation in the room before Proenza Schouler presented their spring 2019 collection back in NYC after two seasons in Paris.

Designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez came home with a collection that felt very New York. And not the idealized cinematic fashion fantasy of New York that is stilettos and sleek and tight and black but the real and hustling New York that is lugging tons of shit around the subway in your favorite pair of jeans. McCullough and Hernandez focused on denim—sturdy, roomy jeans, drop-waist dresses accented with denim bandanas, wrap skirts that looked like a pair of jeans sewn together, denim button downs and suit jackets too. The washes were either dark indigo or acid wash—like the denim of the '90s and the early '00s, which was fitting given the model casting that including stars from both those decades like Amber Valetta, Sasha Pivovarova, Karen Elson and Gemma Ward. Humongous bags, all the better to lug your life around, hung off models shoulders. Chic schleppers, to be sure.

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